If you liked Tony Hawk Underground, yo u will love this sequel! THUG 2 is one of the most entertaining "pick-up and play" games this year! Team Neversoft can not be stopped; Tony Hawk Underground 2 is a hit.

Tony Hawk defines the phrase old school in the realm of professional skating his accomplishments and exploits are legendary. Hawk’s notoriety is also attributed to the franchise of video games that bear his name, and it’s very appropriate that his latest, Tony Hawk Underground 2, is in its own rights old school, thanks to its solid, familiar gameplay and the inclusion of Classic Mode.

In many ways, if you played the last game in this popular skateboarding series, Tony Hawk's Underground, then you've already played the new one, not surprisingly titled Tony Hawk's Underground 2. Most of the gameplay has remained the same, the graphics have improved ever so slightly, and the types of goals are a lot like its predecessor. Basically, it's more of the same, wrapped up in a slightly more sophomoric, mean-spirited package, thanks to the ubiquitous prescence of MTV bad boy Bam Margera. That's not a bad thing, of course, as the game is still the best way to get the ollies out of your system without risking a broken ankle.

Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 is bigger and arguably better than last year’s original, which I ultimately had to breakdown and play after I finished this game. Most of the new stuff seemed tacked on for the sake of having something new, and for a skateboarding game I found myself doing a whole lot of stuff “off the board”. It kind of reminded me of all the on-foot missions in Driver 3.

Neversoft may have just about painted itself into a corner with Tony Hawk's Underground 2. If anybody who's not already the hardest of the hardcore exhausts what this game has to offer...well, they're the hardest of the hardcore now.

After an onslaught of extreme games that came and went and Activision's curious pursuit of the most eccentric regions of extreme sports, such as wakeboarding, the world is left with one -- and thankfully, the best -- of them all, the Tony Hawk series. Going into its sixth iteration, Neversoft's Tony Hawk's Underground 2 is the culmination of six years or refinement, experiment, and expansion from a series that rewrote the way action videogames are played. Not to mention making Activision, Neversoft, and Tony Hawk himself very rich and very popular in the process.

Make no mistake: Tony Hawk's Underground 2 is a very solid game and a no-brainer for those who have yet to experience the series. Neversoft has refined the gameplay to the point of it being almost a meditation exercise, letting you grind, manual, revert and flip with a Zen-like calmness. But despite the fact that Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 is stuffed to the gills with the gameplay that has made the series a phenomenon, it doesn’t actually pull off many new tricks, and like the man himself, is starting to show its age. Flicking boogers at dad might work for Bam, but we expect a little more out of our elder skatesman.

Despite the inclusion of the number "2" right in the game's title, Tony Hawk's Underground 2 is the sixth Tony Hawk game that has been released in as many years. Over these past six years, the series has created a genre and, with every entry, reshaped that genre. Early installments in the series basically rewrote the book on the rewarding combo system every year, but with the gameplay already in a rock solid state, the more recent entries have made more subtle changes. THUG2 hangs on to the great gameplay of the previous games, makes a few minor tweaks, and wraps it all up in a new Bam Margera-centric package. The result might be more satisfying for those who haven't seen most of this stuff already done before in previous Tony Hawk games.

The inclusion of classic mode should’ve been a boon to Tony Hawk fans. Unfortunately, story mode is neutered as a result, and the evolution of the series has passed the structure of classic mode, making it a less rewarding experience as well. THUG2’s Xbox version has now become a largely inferior version to the PS2’s, and there’s no sign of that changing in sight. While, at it’s core, THUG2 houses the same great gameplay of it’s forebears, it has the worst execution of any Tony Hawk game. After the amazing THUG, this one registers as a huge disappointment. The worst Tony Hawk game yet.

The Story Mode is funny, and contains creative tasks to complete, but completely lacks the thoughtfulness and interesting twists the story in THUG1 contained. The Classic Mode brought back the original gameplay found in the first three games. But again, things were missing. There are no “competition” levels to go through. There are only three “unique” goals per stage. And the stat icons are incredibly difficult to find, making goals in the latter stages that much harder to complete. The gameplay additions here are nowhere near as momentous as previous additions. They focus MUCH less on the techniques and tricks, and focus more on shock value. The direction taken leaves out much of the substance the older games contained, and make this game less “complete”.

Bottom line: someone needs to rescue NeverSoft if not the world from this franchise. If developers and publishers want to make multi-faceted games, I’m all for it, but I believe they need to take the time to make each facet of gameplay at least good. As much as this is the deepest Tony Hawk game ever—incorporating crazy levels of customization from characters to actual parks, tricks and missions, online gameplay, the ability to map your own visage onto your skater and much more—it’s also as rough around the edges as any game I’ve ever played, and privy to some of the worst art I’ve ever seen.